Reacting to the suspension of the 1990 batch IAS officer on the charge that he had entered the civil services using a bogus community certificate, she said it was the responsibility of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to vet the antecedents of every recruit and verify all their certificates. “When this is so, the Karunanidhi government suddenly claiming that Umashankar had entered the service using a forged community certificate gives room for speculation on the reasons behind this,” she said in a statement.

Jayalalithaa said Umashankar was appointed as managing director of Arasu Cable Corporation (ACC), which was launched in 2007 following a rift in Karunanidhi’s family. More than Rs 400 crore was invested in ACC for sophisticated electronic receivers and fibre-optic cable networking. However, once there was a reconciliation between Karunanidhi’s close family members and his grand-nephews, the Maran brothers, he was shunted out of ACC, she charged.

Earlier, in 2006, when Umashankar was MD of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), it floated a joint venture company with New Era Technologies Ltd called ELNET, she said and added that ELNET, in turn, launched a subsidiary company called ETL Infrastructure Ltd. “This company purchased 25 acres of land at Pallikaranai near Chennai and constructed an IT park of 17 lakh square feet. It also got IT special economic zone status from the Centre by projecting itself as a subsidiary of the state-owned ELCOT. But later, ETL became a wholly privately-owned company,” the AIADMK chief said. She alleged that the officer was shunted out from ELCOT after he raised questions about the disappearance of it subsidiary from records along with its Rs 700 crore assets.

Umashankar had fallen foul of the Jayalalithaa regime of 1991-96 too. He first came into prominence when he detected irregularities in construction of cremation sheds when he was an official in Madurai district. Later, a CBI investigation was ordered into the scam and the trial is still going on.

AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa accused the DMK government on Wednesday of victimising IAS officer C Umashankar, and alleged that the Dalit officer had been “targeted for expos ing or questioning the wrong-doings” of the family members of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

It “smacks of vendetta,” she said in a statement here, referring to the suspension of Umashankar, a 1990-batch IAS officer, on the “pretext” that he had entered the Civil Services using a bogus community certificate.

Jayalalithaa wondered why the government suddenly claimed that Umashankar had forged his community certificate when it was the UPSC that had appointed him after verifying his credentials and certificates. She recalled that Umashankar had taken action against Sumangali Cable Vision (of the DMK’s Sun TV Group) when he was MD of Arasu Cable Corporation. Also, he had raised certain questions as MD of the ELCOT (Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu).

AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa has alleged that suspension of IAS officer C. Umashankar smacked of victimisation by the DMK government.
In a statement here on Wednesday, Ms. Jayalalithaa questioned the powers of the State government to place an IAS officer under suspension on the pretext that he had entered the Civil Services using a bogus community certificate.
“All civil service appointments in the country are done by the Union Public Service Commission. It is the responsibility of the UPSC to vet the antecedents of every recruit and verify their certificates,” she said.
She said the DMK government’s claim that Mr. Umashankar, belonging to Dalit community, had entered the service using a forged community certificate had given room for speculation on the reasons behind this.
Ms. Jayalalithaa recalled the government’s decision to launch Arasu Cable Corporation and the appointment of Mr. Umashankar as its Managing Director, and said the real motive behind it was to pose a challenge to the Maran brothers’ Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV).
Scapegoat
Ms. Jayalalithaa said after an agreement was suddenly reached between the warring cousins of Mr. Karunanidhi’s family, the IAS officer was made the scapegoat and shunted out.
She alleged that though Mr. Umashankar was appointed as the MD of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), he was removed from the post because he questioned the disappearance of ETL Infrastructure Ltd., a subsidiary of ELCOT, along with Rs. 700 crore assets.
Explanation sought
Demanding an explanation from Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on what happened to ETL and the fate of the Rs. 400 crore invested in Arasu Cable Corporation, she wanted to know why was a Dalit officer in government service being victimised.

1. In the prequalification criteria Page no.2, item no 2 (VI) NIC said that ï¿½the vendor or the prime bidder in the case of consortium should be CMM level 4 or ISO 9000-3 certifiedï¿½. (Please note that there is no certification called ISO 9000-3 in this world and it is only the guidelines for software companies. Through this ITI which has deployed more than 20 eProcurement projects across the country has been prevented from participating in the tender) .
2. Apparently ITI Limited a PSU under MCIT has made a representation to NIC stating that the prequalification criteria is wrong and ITI should be allowed to participate in the tender which hasbeen refused by NIC orally.

3. Further STQC experts also informed that the prequalification criteria is wrong.

4. Without listening to the STQC and ITI, NIC went ahead and executed the tender for eProcurement.

5. Interestingly (??) the consortium of PWC and C1 INDIA bagged the order form NIC.

6. How beautiful and professional this entire transaction is:

– The PWC who is the consultant to GOAP is the Prime bidder of Consortium.

– The C1 INDIA which bagged the project from GOAP through the recommendations of PWC is the consortium partner.

– Though the pre-qulaification criteria was wrong and ITI as well as STQC have submitted the note to this effect, NIC went ahead and awarded the tender to PWC & C1 consortium.

– Now the NIC along with PWC and C1 INDIA can go to any state/central/ PSU and deploy eProcurement project to enhance transparency (??). however there is no transparency in the NIC’s Procement itself?

Now questions to NIC are:

Can NIC Put a wrong Qualification criteria to prevent their own sister concern ITI Limited and do not respond to the representation made by ITI Limited?

Can a consultant (PWC) become the supplier (PWC & C1 consortium)?

When a consultant (PWC) recommends some company (C1 ) for the award (in GOAP), can the consultant (PWC) join with the same company (PWC) for another project (NIC) as supplier.

27-4-05
Dear Members,
I have received the following expose on Mr.J.
Satyanarayana IAS., who heads the NISG now.

One of the affected persons met me four weeks ago. He
is from a reputed area. Now I have another reputed
source confirming the corrupt ways of Mr.J.
Satyanarayana.

Coupled with the B1 and e-biz episodes I have every
reason to consider the information prima facie true.
But the law dictum says "hear the other side also".
And so I had written to Mr.J. Satyanarayana and a
copy is marked here for your information.
I hope Mr.Satyanarayana responds to this mail.
27-4-05
My dear esteemed colleague Mr.J. Satyanarayana,
You are heading an organisation (National Institute of
Smart Government) which had been declared the single
nodal agency to route all e-gov proposals of the
country. The information we have received on you does
not portray you an honest person. Your dealings with
regard to B1 and e-biz do not impress true e-gov
enthusiasts like me. For your information, a top
executive of C1 India met me during the national e-gov
conference during Feb this year at Bhubaneswar and
offered me to a proposal whereby I should submit e-gov
proposals and he would get it approved and
implemented. He was talking as though he had the
entire e-gov decision makers in his pockets. May be he
is correct.
Now the very same corrupt C1 had bagged the e-biz
contract through NISG, that is you.
NISG does not have anyone who has any e-gov experience
except you. So any decision from NISG means a decision
by you only, even if you try to defend the other way.
As a District Collector, I owned all the decisions on
e-gov at Tiruvarur (1999-2001) because there was no
one who could understand e-gov in Tiruvarur at that
time. You have a team which matches my Tiruvarur
bureaucracy of 1999.
Mr. Satyanarayana, you owe an explanation to the
nation on these allegations. Because you are the
single most important person who can make or mar
e-governance in India. This is an unfortunate
situation whereby the country had handed over the
entire e-gov work to a single individual. We expect
you to uphold the best values of the IAS coupled with
honesty, transparency and integrity. In this case your
honesty and integrity had come under a cloud. We would
like to hear your side. I am sending this write up on
behalf of all Indians living in India and abroad who
wish to see India a truly e-governed nation.
And kindly do reply so that we get the benefit of
hearing your side. In case we do not hear from you
within a reasonable time, say 7 days, it would be
presumed that you had accepted all the allegations
mentioned in the write up attached below.
From my experience I can share with you that when I
served as District Collector at Tiruvarur an
anonymous allegation petition was received against me.
Within the same day I sat and prepared a reply and
sent it to the Government though it was not expected
on my part to reply to an anonymous petition.
When you take strong action against criminals this
happens. If one is too corrupt then also such
petitions arise. In the case of Tiruvarur mostly the
high class criminals who owned a house worth Rs.10
lakhs and above were booked under goondas act, illicit
arrack distillation as well as sale was wiped out in
the district with the help of the police and women
Self Help Groups (SHGs), the women SHGs were
empowered to recommend arrest of anti social elements
and the anti social elements were paraded through the
town centre with placards hanging under their neck.
And so the allegation petition arose. I submitted my
reply to the Government on the same day.
This is the typical reaction of an honest officer.
I am attaching the allegation write up which I had
received from a highly reliable source. I request your
feedback/comments:
"PwC & J. Satyanarayana – A sinister connection??
Mr.JS as Secretary (IT)- Government of Andhra Pradesh
One needs to look closely at the consultancy projects
awarded by J Satyanarayana and you will see a pattern
emerge The only company to win most of the contracts
was PwC.
Mr. Satyanarayana was the Principal Secretary of
Information Technology in Government of Andhra Pradesh
for 4 years from 2000, has awarded consultancy jobs to
PwC for 5 major Projects namely, OLTP, SBMS (Social
Welfare), IFIS (Finance department), E Procurement and
HRMS. PwC’s job was to prepare the RFP, call for
tenders on behalf of Govt. of Andhra Pradesh evaluate
the technical bids, qualify final bidders for
commercial bid opening and finally recommending and
leave the decision to the government to place orders
on such party. It may also be interesting to note that
in some evaluations, it was just left to PwC to sit
through product demonstrations without any
participation of the Government.
PwC also was assigned a consultancy job from GOAP to
study each department and come out with a need
analysis and an architecture/roadmap for each
department. There was no process reengineering. The
Output was the “Big picture” This architecture was
completely faulty and was never used by any
department. The OLTP Project was a disaster, however
2.10 crores was spent for the pilot other that the
project consultancy fees to PwC
Mr. Satyanarayana has also recommended PwC’s name to
the Commercial taxes department and the Department of
Municipal administration of the Government of Andhra
Pradesh as a consultant.
This was the time where Mr, Satyanarayana was
transferred from the IT department to the Social
Welfare department. Along with him PwC’s contract was
also not extended further. All the above transactions
looked normal
Mr.JS, as CEO - NISG.
The first project taken by NISG was EBIZ. As usual
NISG wanted to appoint a consultant and architected a
tender to enable the selection of PwC as a consultant.
NISG has called for a closed tender and the tender
documents were given to 1. Crimson Logic (Singapore
based firm). 2. Haselfre (a 4 month old company who
would not qualify the criteria) 3. PwC. Haselfre was
disqualified in the prebid evaluation criteria while
Crimson logic was disqualified on the technical
grounds and the contract for consultancy for EBIZ
(Ministry of Commerce initiative) was issued to PwC.
PwC was given a task for creating a pilot for Ebiz as
an additional job. Pilot was based on multiple
technologies where integration would become a major
issue. Subsequently NISG has called for an RFP and
currently the technical bids are under scrutiny. Not
surprisingly, NISG has awarded the contract to PwC for
evaluating the Ebiz bids.
There are several consulting companies like KPMG, TCS,
Wipro, Satyam, Ernst & Young , Microsoft Consulting
services etc. who can manage similar jobs and it is
difficult to understand the reason NISG has floated
limited enquiries to only Crimson logic, Haselfre and
PwC.
NISG has awarded the e-govworld the Knowledge portal
(Ministry of Information Technology – Government of
India), Govt of Chattisgarh / Govt of Karnataka
procurement RFP preparation consulting job to PwC. It
is very evident that all these will lead to certain
vendors winning these tenders.
It is very evident that J. Satyanatanaraya has an
unholy nexus with Pwc and it warrants a closer look at
the possibility of corruption in the process.
To add, NISG has a bunch of inexperienced youngsters
who do not understand the working of the Government
involved in creation of e-governance projects. This
will ensure that all projects taken up by them will
fail. Precious resources of the Government are being
wasted by NISG by the CEO flying in business class in
India and Abroad to attend seminars, which will add no
value to the successful implementation of e-governance
projects".
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Regards.
Umashankar
Tue, 26 Apr 2005 20:44:25 -0700 (PDT)
"Umashankar C" <umashankarc@yahoo.com>

With profound sorrow I wish to bring to your notice
that NISG had finalised the tender for the E-biz
initiative in favour of C1 India.

The reason for my concern is as follows:

The CEO of C1 India met me in Bhubaneswar during the
8th National E-gov conference (Feb, 2005) and proposed
me that I should submit some e-gov proposals and he
would get the same cleared for national level
implementation.

The way in which he spoke gave the indication as
though he had every one in his pocket.
Apparently he has Mr.Sathyanarayana of NISG in his
pockets.

And so C1 India which was hitherto unknown to Indians
became a great e-gov service provider for
e-procurement. The pricing methodology adopted was to
offer a percentage of the tender sum to the service
provider! This is nothing but a huge fraud. Now the
e-biz tender has gone in favour of C1. They would have
finalised an other path breaking revenue model, even
beating the e-procurement model!

I got information yesterday that both Ram Infotech and
C1 India worked with Mr.Sathyanarayana when he served
as IT Secretary in AP.

So any tender would be finalised only in favour of his
known companies whether they are capable or not is
immaterial.

A huge scale corruption is being perpetrated by my
colleague Mr.Sathyanarayana which has to be stopped.

It is a wonder that NISG which Mr.Sathyanarayana has
been heading with no known e-gov specialist on board
has been finalising thousands of crores of rupees
worth e-gov projects. And NISG is a private company.

How a private company is allowed to have this corrupt
run?

I have a feeling that the higher ups in the Government
of India, I mean my colleagues in the IT ministry have
a role to play in this!

I am a member of the national level committee for
implementation of national e-gov action plan. But I
have not got any invitation to attend meeting so far.
NISG has been busy selling the country in the
meanwhile.

God save India!

Umashankar

C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre)
e-governance expert and Member (Special Invitee) – Working group for implementation of National e-governance action plan, Government of India, New Delhi.

Either you do curruption or you knowingly bear curruption, you are currupted, “SO AS WE ALL ARE CURRUPTED”.

I believe no one will bother with these lines and will not even realize how helpless or rather say how Coward we have graduted towards.

In my earlier postings i have tried to mention the security lapses maintained intentionally in e-Procurement in A.P. to play around with Rs. 15000 crore or more on mercy of NISG or C1.

I had tried to APPEAL to all the concerned that e-Governance may be taken off by bringing transparency on its root level ie; it should be made mandatory that all the Tendering Procedures should be made Public at each and every stage and hence we may think of Realizing Optimum Value of Public Money realized in Bringing Growth to them and hence to the Nation.

I again doubt on many bogus members of our group who intentionally deviate the seriousness of group and make some serious group members to be kept aloof.

I Invite Attention of everybodies inner MORAL (if still Live) to come Forward and take up NISG and C1, and few others like them to the Public Court, having a belief if all the Four Pillars of Democracy including media is not got Paralyzed completely. My inner belief is that it has not got completely so, let us strengthen the Pillars and take initiative.

I propose to file a PIL on these Curruption issues specific to the e-Governance initiative to first eradicate such misappropriation of Public Fund and further try to get some strict Law and Constitution to put all Culprints who play around with e-Governance to undergo a sentence of “DESHDROH” and be penalized substancially, These hearing again should be tackeled in ‘Fast Courts”.

Mr. Umashankar, i`m sorry that you are not liking the pocket of CEO of C1, it could have Heavenly Comfort and strong Financial Security, so you should not wait for invitation from NEGAP, rather you may receive expulsion or cancellation of your status. To rectify that you may think of searching a right place in his pocket (I`m sure many will be in Line, even from this group to have some space in his Pocket, My GoddWishes are with them.

Let us form an specific Action Committe within us to battle with these lines of open Curruption in space of e-Governance. I propose to search only one Dead Honest Judicial Person to head this committe and let us colloborate for Good e-Governance unlike of NISG. why am i proposing Dead Honest because the chosen one should not start searching godd place in his pocket.

I`m confident “We Shall Overcome………”

All the concerned Members, With a request to search if your Inner is there?
Dr. Manoj Verma

Dear Members,
C1 is a company using all the means it can to get business, many a
number of government officials even in top levels are involved and in
support of such companies for one or other ethical and unethical reasons. I
am sure each and every action is justifiable as long as the justice as
such is not getting tampered with.
E Governance if justfully enabled will be a boon to country such as
ours due to its obvious benefits. The pathetic aspect is the companies
such as C1 and those supporting such companies are willingly acting
against the future of the nation.
They should be treated as anti nationals as such.
If I am correct then the company C1 is just a dealer for Commerce One a
Bankrupt US based company whose IPR was auctioned and sold off to some
German based firm.
How can C1 be ever trusted with such critical initiatives such as E
Governance??
I just wish make a comment here that “Those who have the power to
correct the wrong and simply not taking the correct measures are only
allowing the wrong get more and more deep routed”
Thanking You for reading this message
With Warm Regards
Ravindran.V.C.
E Procurement Consultant

________________________________________________

Dear Mr. Umashankar,

An oblique comment (does not address the central,
serious issue of cooked up tendering process but
something to be aware of in the globalized world):

Googled for “C1 India” and followed some links. Looks
like C1 India is not part of the US company whose technology
it might be using.

It is simply a distributor, not a subsidiary, of
Commerce One US. The point being, US companies and
their executives can be prosecuted under US laws for
bribing overseas. Therefore, if furnished the evidence
of such bribing in India, one could even go to the
district attorney in Santa Clara county where Commerce
One is based. If there is an involvement of Commerce
One officers/employees in bribing, I am here to take
the case to the public prosecutor. A long shot. But
worth pursuing as one of the prongs in the strategy.

The DA offices have a lot of discretion whether to
pursue or not, but it is only DAs in the US that
are expected to be activist and do go after the
likes of Enrons and Worldcom.

If you research, you will find that Commerce One, US has got Bankurpt and afterwards one German Firm had taken it over, C1 India earlier was a distributor of Commerce One US and had cheated a lot companies with their that association, M/S Antares System had lodged the FIRST REPORTED CYBER CRIME against C1 India aginst infringment of IPR of Antares System, Bangalore in 2003 which is still under trial in High Court Delhi.

I doubt C1 India will have any relation now with sold out Commerce One currently. But NISG could be taken in account as you suggested being a organization promoted by UNDP fund and that will help India a lot to ALARM other J. Satyanarayan in making in India to sabotage the right e-Governance initiative.

“This initiative is a part of the state government’s efforts to increase efficiencies in all its departments through faster and more transparent automated procurement procedures.

In C1 India we have found a committed partner whose support and dedication to this project is commendable.”
– Principal Secretary (IT&C),
Government of Andhra Pradesh

“The Andhra Pradesh government has saved a whopping Rs 616.27 crore in 2003-04 because of its use of the e-procurement platform.

In fact, so successful has been the e-procurement practice that the total amount spent by the government on 1,212 projects amounting to an estimated Rs 2,801 crore is 22 per cent lower than its own estimations.”Publication: Business Standard
Hyderabad May 07,2004

Again dodging to the public, i have earlier informed that what Indian IT Act Recommends and why till 1st March 2005, it was not followed, it could cause a serious Security violation in helping the Vested Interest people, either System Administrator(C1 India), A.P. Govt. Officials, any particular Vendor or nexus of either or all mentioned.

It is again doubt ful why for Two Years an Indian IT Act was openly been violated.

I have posted few more postings on this issue recently you may view those to have Crystal Clear Picture on the same, So as it has got repeated with the Tender invited by NIC for e-Procurement, again NISG short of an Unlawful, non-transparent favor had extended to C1 India by NIC Officials.

I`m repeatedly asking CVC, NIC, NISG, APTS, Andhra Pradesh IT Deptt., DGS&D to publish the Tendering procedures adopted for selecting C1 India, but no one is responding confirms the smoke more thicker.